Tips for snooker "newbies"?

[DarrenReeder94]

Hello,

I am now playing snooker at a rileys club near my college. I will be playing on Tuesdays and Wednesdays after i finish college. At the moment i am really bad at snooker. I am potting a lot of balls when the cue ball is closer to the object ball, but i cant keep the cue straight when feathering and i cant get the cue ball to go where i want on a long pot...

This makes it hard to play.

any good tips to improve my game play?

At the moment im not even worrying about cue ball control, I am able to screw back and a few other stuff but it causes me to miss the pot so i try to avoid cue balll control..

so thanks for any tips you can give

EDIT:

I have found that the main problem I struggle with is that i get neck pains and lower back pains when playing snooker... Today i played for 2 hours. I had 3 hours available (1 hour free) but i could not possibly play on, my neck hurt too much...

Anyone else experienced these problems and know how to solve them?

[cally]

Hi darren, loads of excellent advice in this coaching section of the forum, you will find everything you need to know here. Go fill yer boots fella...:snooker:

[CoachGavin]

You probably just need to improve your basics - stance, grip etc. As cally said loads of stuff on here and I have a website which has some general tips at www.121snookercoaching.com Try looking for snooker coaching on youtube as well - nic barrow, del hill and terry griffiths all have good videos.

Hope this helps.

[DarrenReeder94]

I added another point to my thread underneath the "EDIT:" part...

[CoachGavin]

I think your stance is probably uncomfortable and you need to get this right. Try going down with your eyes closed and moving each part of your stance from one extreme to another to find the one that feels correct.

So, get down into the standard square on stance (one leg bent ,one straight, body facing shot etc ) and then close you eyes. Move your left leg all the way to the left and then all the way to the right so your stance becomes really wide then really narrow. Find a comfy position and then move on. Get down again in your new position and close your eyes. Then move your left leg forward and back to the two extremes, again feeling for the most comfy position. When ready open your eyes and stand up. Just repeat this for every part of your stance - bridge arm,bridge, amount of lean into shot etc. You should finish with a much more comfortable stance.

Thanks Terry and Nic for this.

Hope it helps.

Gavin